About EPSS & Technology - Web Applications: articles about e-commerce and other browser based systems and Web sites.More about Web Applications (2000)The Cranky User: The Principle of Least Astonishment
Throughout the history of engineering, one usability principle seems to me to have risen high above all others. It's called the Principle of Least Astonishment -- the assertion that the most usable system is the one that least often leaves users astonished. Web pages violate this rule constantly, flagrantly, and in ways that produce a great deal of the ill-will that Web designers sometimes face. Web pages astonish users by hiding buttons, providing buttons that don't work, and redefining the basic visual cues that are supposed to allow users to navigate a page. When users are astonished they usually assume that they have made a mistake; they are unlikely to realize that the page has astonished them. They are more likely to feel that they are at fault for not anticipating the page. Don't take advantage of this; making users feel stupid is not endearing. (2001-09-02)Did Poor Usability Kill E-Commerce?
Jakob Nielsen, Alert Box: User success rates on e-commerce sites are only 56%, and most sites comply with only a third of documented usability guidelines. Given this, improving a site's usability can substantially increase both sales and a site's odds of survival. (2001-08-19)Broken links and poor information architecture design
Gerry McGovern: Links are an essential infrastructure that allow web content to be navigable. Without links, you might as well pile all the billions of documents on the Web into one huge container. Link management is thus an important part of the activity of running a website. A broken link is a sign of an unprofessional website. (2001-08-19)Style vs. Design
Many young Web designers — and let's face it, most Web designers are under 30 — view their craft the way I used to view pop culture. It's cool or it's crap. They mistake Style for Design, when the two things are not the same at all. Design communicates on every level. It tells you where you are, cues you to what you can do, and facilitates the doing. Style is tautological; it communicates stylishness. In visual terms, style is an aspect of design; in commercial terms, style can communicate brand attributes. (2001-08-19)Download Speeds And Usability
Simply put, download speeds matters – it always has mattered, and it always will matter. To argue the extreme position first, it is clear that if a homepage takes, for example, 5 minutes to load, there will be a significant drop off in the number of users willing to wait in order to see the site. I don’t think it is possible to argue with that, and all research to date has consistently found that slower downloads mean more users giving up on a site. (2001-08-12)Managing Unstructured Content in Enterprise Information Portals
destinationCRM.com: Today, a new class of software, enterprise information portals ("EIPs") promises to bring order to this corporate jungle of information -- often referred to as unstructured information -- which knowledge workers need to perform their jobs. A recent estimate put unstructured information at 80 percent of all corporate information. This white paper focuses on the issues related to the management, organization, contribution, searching and indexing of unstructured content through the use of a content directory and an organizational taxonomy as part of an EIP solution. (2001-08-12)Slim Down That Homepage
Business 2.0: Web research firm Jupiter Media Metrix recommends that webpages weigh no more than 40KB to 50KB. At that size, it will take about 8 to 10 seconds for your page to appear over a 56-kbps modem connection -- about the limit of most people's patience. Any slower, and you risk losing customers as they give up in disgust and click away to another site before yours has even finished loading. (2001-07-22)Design for Process, Not Products
Business 2.0, Jakob Nielsen: Customers need compelling reasons to complete complex tasks on the Web. It's usually easier to pick up the phone and deal with a salesperson than to go it alone on the Web. Users often tell us that the Web is OK for preliminary research, but useless for closing deals. Most B-to-B sites overlook their users' perspective in their eagerness to move them to the checkout line. (2001-07-08)The future's bright!
Intranet Magazine: First, Web sites will simplify their design: less glamour and more straightforward answers to people's needs. This will happen for the simple reason that any Web sites that are too difficult to use will be abandoned by the users. Thus, the surviving Web sites in 10 years will by definition be those that are good at following usability guidelines. Second, we will have better searching. Third, browsers will have improved their support for people's navigation behaviour and will visualise the user's current location in the navigation space and the relation between the different units of information. Fourth, bandwidth will finally have improved enough to provide for pleasant download times - one second or less for simple Web pages. And as most pages will be simple, this means that people will start feeling the full freedom of movement that is necessary for full utilisation of hypertext. (2001-07-08)Attack of the Back Button
Webword.com: Getting stuck on a web page can be painful. The back button doesn't always work. While there are many ways to escape from web pages, many users don't know the tricks. A company can stop hurting users by doing more testing, using proper development methods, and being aware of the issue. (2001-07-08)True Simplicity: Krug-o-rama!
WebWord.com: An interview with Steve Krug, author of Don't Make Me Think "The whole notion that users are dying for "rich content" has always struck me as a strange one. I think it's based on the idea that the Web is going to be TV when it grows up, and the only thing that's keeping it from growing up is a lack of bandwidth. For me, it's like saying that movies will be better when they're all holographic, or even that they got better when they made the transition from black and white to color." (2001-07-01)Abandoned Shopping Carts: Enigma or Sloppy E-Commerce?
Ecommerce-Guide.com: People don't abandon shopping carts without a good reason. And the phenomenon of the abandoned shopping cart -- this blight upon the Internet retail landscape -- is not merely a wayward hobby, Internet prank or something hackers do in their down time. These are real shoppers, potential customers with products in hand, evaporating before your very eyes. (2001-07-01)Understanding the Art and Science of Web Design
WebWord.com: An interview with Jeffrey Veen, author of The Art and Science of Web Design. According to Veen "The principles for Web design are pretty straightforward: know your audience, keep it simple, be fast, know the rules before you break them. With the exception of the speed thing, I'm not sure they're all that different from designing in any other medium. Applying common sense to Web design would make 90 percent of the sites out there so much better. It's just so easy to get caught up in what you can do and forget about what you should do. It's a classic technology paradox." (2001-07-01)The Conversion Rate
Frontend: A key concept in understanding the value of usability is often called the ‘conversion rate’. Simply put, it represents the percentage of unique visitors who go on to interact with the site in a pre-defined way. Usually this means make a purchase, but depending on the site in question it could mean registering for more information, placing a bet or opening an account. (2001-06-24)Nielsen on Usability: Next Steps for Web Usability
Internet World: Is the Web usability glass half full or half empty? Year after year, users continue to struggle with even the simplest tasks, so it is tempting to call the glass half empty, or even mostly empty. Truly, the vast majority of sites are still very difficult to use. But people don't spend their time on these sites; they go to the "good" sites. And the good sites are getting better with every redesign. Fewer frames, less Flash, smaller graphics, cleaner layouts, no splash screens. (2001-06-17)A failure to communicate
While usability is obviously important, it's far from the only consideration in designing a user experience. There are at least three aspects to sites: information, experience, and interaction - fact (or fiction), form, and function, if you will. The most appropriate design for a site depends on the relative importance of each of these. (2001-06-17)Edu-centives Can Drive Online Sales
Eduventures, through extensive research on the e-learning market, opines that many consumers are attracted to sites, not only because of their product offerings but because they cater to their educational needs and interests. They uphold that e-vendors can make their sites more 'sticky' by merging e-commerce with e-learning initiatives. (2001-06-17)Web Dominance: A Matter of Choice?
E-Commerce Times: According to this editorial, Yahoo!, America Online, Microsoft, and Napster account for half of all the surfing time in the U.S. because they are a snap to use. There is very little brainwork involved in navigating around, say, Yahoo!. Everything has a place and a label that is clear and for the most part self-explanatory. It gets even easier when you return. That's what e-commerce needs to understand. Smart e-tailers already know that their audiences are coming at them from AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft, but once the surfers are brought to an e-tail site, keeping them there seems to be another trick altogether. Too many e-commerce sites still present visitors with riddles in terms of their layout and design. Site-specific search engines too often don't work, or return hundreds of hits. All those hits might have seemed like a bounty in our exploration phase, but in the practical age, they are a waste of time. (2001-06-10)The Four Horsemen of Usability
webword.com: As of June 2001, four web properties control more than 50% of all the time spent online by U.S. surfers. This means that you can throw away your usability guidelines and follow these companies. They spend millions on usability testing and they are driving standards by sheer market force. You have no choice but to follow their lead. (2001-06-10)Then, Now, Next: Five Perspectives on the Web Development Industry
WebReview.com: The feverish euphoria over Internet-based companies has worn off. In light of fallen stock prices and scarce venture capital, now seems like a good time for reflection. In order to gain some perspective, I thought it might be wise to email some of the Web's well-known mentors: Jeffrey Zeldman, Todd Purgason, Lynda Weinman, Jakob Nielsen, and David Siegel. I wasn't disappointed. In return I got perspective—and then some! (2001-06-10)Employing Strategic Content Management For Successful Intranets
Intranet Journal: An intranet site is only as good as its content. No matter how much form and function goes into the framework, it is the transfer of information that drives intranet success. Which is why intranet strategy - from conception, to implementation, to change - must revolve around the right content management technology and methodology. (2001-06-10)'Mouse-trapping' locks Web users in a virtual maze
USA Today: According to this article a growing number of Web sites are using "mouse-trapping" to control visitors' online behavior. Mouse-trapping prevents a user from backing out of the site. "People don't want to get locked in," Krikorian of top9.com says. "We get e-mail all the time from people who say, 'We'll never visit that site again.' " (2001-06-03)The Psychology of Ecommerce: Choice Overload and other Paradoxes
This is a 90 minute streaming video of a presentation. People generally believe that the quality of personal freedom goes up every time the range of available options increases in quantity. Although there are certainly situations where "more is more," the number of consumer choices on the Internet overwhelms even the most vigorous surfer. Psychologists have documented numerous paradoxes that pop up when people are free to pursue their own preferences. Surprisingly, more choice does not necessarily lead to better decisions. And because of inconsistencies and biases in decision-making, situations that increase the range of options often cause people to feel less satisfied about the choices they make. This talk will review recent research relevant to the design of purchasing choices presented through the Web. Besides cataloguing the kinds of mistakes people typically make, information architects and designers can glean tips in how to help people deal with choice-overload. (2001-06-03)Design Darwinism
The Economist: WHO killed all those dotcoms? Most experts accuse greedy venture capitalists, inexperienced managers or impatient shareholders. But Jakob Nielsen, one of the leading experts on user-friendly web design, has identified another culprit: offputting websites. Many of them were just too difficult to use. “Firms drew users to their sites with expensive promotions,” he explains, “and then lost them with ineffective design and bad service.” If websites and computer programs were easier to use, he argues, it would not just narrow the digital divide, but also save knowledge workers about half of the hours they now spend in front of the screen. (2001-05-27)User Advocate Or Enemy Of Creativity?
Var Business: Much of today's bad design can be blamed on over inflated egos--whether they belong to the companies that own sites or the Web designers who create them, Nielsen says. "You still see a lot of Flash intros, for example, which are just there to make the designer or Web site owner feel good," he says. "But we all know users always click the 'Skip Intro' button right away because they want to get to the facts." (2001-05-27)KISS Your Customers If You Want Them Back
ClickZ: Programmers dream of elegant code. To them, simple is elegant. That's true of the language the rest of us use: The best writing is often the simplest. So too with Web sites. The idea is to communicate, after all. Designing for simplicity is anything but simple (as if I needed to tell you that). But well-thought-out simplicity is what makes the successful Web sites successful. When you want to learn to be the best at something, do you study the amateurs or the pros? (2001-05-06)Educommerce: Online Learning Migrates to the E-commerce Arena
Eduventures.com Many companies are experimenting with free online learning as a tool to simultaneously increase e-commerce sales and decrease e-commerce expenses. This paper examines the convergence of online learning and e-commerce-known as "educommerce" as a marketing and sales strategy. It describes the evolution and role of educommerce in the Internet economy, presents tools for assessing key players in the educommerce market, and offers an analysis of the market challenges and opportunities facing these key players in the months ahead. (2001-04-29)Online Shopper: When Familiarity Breeds Temptation
New York Times: It occurred to me that just as my local store had trained me to look for the brie in the refrigerated case with the ham hocks, Amazon.com had trained me to expect a certain layout in an online store. And not just at Amazon.com. It turns out that in the Web design business, my reaction is known as the McDonald's effect. "The reason you go into a McDonald's when you are in a foreign country," said Kelly Goto, creative director at the consulting firm Idea Integration, "is you know what you are going to get, and you know how the french fries are going to taste. The reason you like a store to look like Amazon is because then you know how to navigate it comfortably." (2001-04-22)The Non-Verbal Web
<TFM> :The most frequent physical interaction between people and the Web is "The Click." It is my contention that certain Web objects send a non-verbal signal of clickability; the visitor perceives that the action of clicking will reveal more (hopefully useful) information. Even for the Web novice, this perception is absorbed within the first few minutes of the first Web session. It meets Cooper's maxim: 1. all idioms must be learned, and 2. good idioms only need to be learned once. (2001-04-22)Best Practices For Successful Intranets
Intranet Design Magazine: Thinking big in the first phase of intranet planning is the nature of e-business, but then it's time to start asking the tough questions. One needs to figure out where the business goals and the user goals need to meet in order to create an intranet that offers the most value. Asking why will lead you to understand what the organization needs, what the user needs, and help prioritize them. Most organizations with mobile workforces, geographically dispersed business units, extensive partner networks, or large employee bases benefit greatly from using Web-based communications, making the decision to create a corporate intranet, or even multiple intranets, the most logical choice. Often, however, the more extensive the needs, the more complex the intranet can become. Figuring out how to get the "quick hits" in terms of usability and ROI is a matter of looking from the outside-in to determine what content and functionality will benefit users most, how this information will further help the organization's operational efficiency, and ultimately, the bottom line. (2001-04-22)Building a Web Vocabulary
Cisco Systems: By building a "Web vocabulary"—also known as a taxonomy or a classification system— companies are finding they can organize information better, attract and retain more visitors to their Web sites, and, most important, stay ahead of the competition. A Web vocabulary is based on metadata—the data that describes other data. With a Web vocabulary, companies can offer users a more consistent look and feel across the site. They can create a dynamic content framework that ties together all objects on the site, such as text, graphics, and applications. And they can transform their relationship with customers, partners, and employees by customizing or personalizing their offerings. (2001-04-15)The Church of Usability
CNet Builder.com: This articles summarizes the views of 6 software design and usability experts: Jackob Nielsen, Jared Spool, Alan Cooper, Andrew Chak, Robert Davis and Andrew Laroche. (2001-03-25)Online Help -- At A Steep Price
Planet IT: DynaHelp aids you in creating point-of-problem assistance -- assistance that's totally focused on the content of the Web page the visitor is currently viewing. With usage patterns and other nifty tools, DynaHelp can intelligently display questions and answers based on the visitor's site usage. A natural-language interface named Ask lets visitors use English-language questions so they aren't limited to the usual keyword searches. A visitor can type How do I buy your products? instead of entering the keyword buy. (2001-03-25)It May Flash, but It Doesn’t Streak
ClickZ: Yes -- irritating enough on a broadband connection and deathly slow over a modem (even when streaming) -- those nifty, techno-fueled, groovy, whizzing logo animations that so many designers feel compelled to put in front of their Web sites suck. Plain and simple. The time has come for Web consumers everywhere to scream, "Stop the madness!" (2001-03-18)The Architecture of Online
eCom Resource Center: The problem here is that even seriously interesting design can interfere with usability. Innovation, whether aesthetic or technical, can disrupt user interactivity, design purpose, or commerce objectives. It's true that mouse-over navigation bars - especially the ones that activate telescoping sub-directories - look impressive. Similarly, a solid flash intro can show that your e-business is not an Internet fly-by-night. But the problem is that form can subvert function, notably when design involves innovation or requires the user to adapt to a new set of usability rules or a new kind of interface. And when form distorts function, then the medium does not become the message - it obscures it. (2001-01-18)Creative Tension
Darwin Online: Some Web designers push the medium. Others scorn the flashy stuff. We asked five leading designers where they stand in this budding religious war. (2001-03-11)The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Modern Web Design
E-Media Marketer: "Too many sites confuse good design with large graphics and new technology, and they also confuse innovation with stuff like animation," Van Wyk says. "Those of us who grew up building CD-Roms knew that highly complicated highly animated interfaces didn't work. The latest crop of designers have not had that training and when the brief says innovative, they use flash and create something which is just unuseable. No-one wants to just look at a web site - they want to use it." (2001-02-25)Guideline dogma
Systems-Concept.com: "Nobody would deny that usability guidelines, applied in context by a usability professional, are extremely valuable in guiding a website evaluation. The problem occurs when non-professionals apply these guidelines out of context. This can result in an unimaginative site that looks bland and homogenous. To design usable sites that truly engage customers we need to replace simple guidelines with a customer-centred design process." (2001-02-04)For Jared Spool, Personalization Isn't Personal at All...Yet
Content Rules: “Learn to discriminate,” instructs Spool. “Specific information about a user could yield some useful functionality. For example, it might be helpful for a floral Web site to track the types of flowers you have sent, and then warn you not to send the same ones twice—or to suggest one that you’ve indicated was well received.” But gathering such information about one or two facts, Spool suggests, doesn’t merit redesigning your whole Web site. This is probably most true in complex applications involving knowledge workers. “You would have to predict what they need at any given time,” says Spool. “and the odds of your being psychic are slim.” (2001-01-28)E-Shopping Carts on Wobbly Wheels
E-Commerce Times: Even though we've heard glowing reports about the online consumer experience, the Accenture study found that 80 percent of shoppers using apparel sites are not satisfied. Of those who had a bad time online, 72 percent said they would be unlikely to return to the scene of the crime. The common complaints? Confusing site navigation and difficulty finding information about sale prices, gift certificates and returns. These are the very elements of the shopping experience that brick-and-mortar companies have almost perfected. Shoppers are attracted to the basics: low prices, good signage and colorful displays. It is often the visuals that count most. (2001-01-28)Repent from Flash Sins
Streaming Media World: I hate to say it but Web sites that do not make money are not long for this world. Sure, there will always be sites that show off the latest Flash tricks. But those that do so at the expense of their original message will not be successful. Imagine that. There will come a day when a Flash expert cannot get work. It is horrifying to think about it. The time to repent is now. I encourage you to spend some time studying up on usability research. True, the common sense solutions proposed can be a bit boring. But then if you decide push the edge, you will have a better understanding of what the risks and costs are. (2001-01-28)Top Reasons for Abandoned Online Purchases
ClickZ: After examining the top reasons, the author concludes: "I think the moral of this story is pretty clear: Be more conscientious about what and how much information you ask for. We need to do much more work to earn our users' trust. We need to do user testing and be diligent about designing sites that are easy to use. We need to provide consistent, pleasurable experiences." (2001-01-21)Inefficient Websites Add to Daily Frustration
CNews: This article describes the author's experience in using the web to find a legal form. After trying many sites and making several calls, he concludes that: "While the Internet can be a wonderful resource, it can often add an additional level of complexity and often a great source of confusion and frustration, especially when you're in a hurry to find something." (2001-01-21)Lessons Learned from Brick and Mortar Stores
According to this article: "E-tailers often forget that since their customers have spent most of their time shopping in traditional brick and mortar stores, shoppers have expectations about what their shopping experience should be like. This short article describes how to design e-commerce sites to provide a shopping experience that is more like the brick and mortar shopping experience. (2001-01-21)The fundamentals of quality search
Nua Knowledge Base: According to this article: "A recent survey by WebTop found that 71 percent of people who use the Internet said they were frustrated by web searches and 46 percent found them nerve-wracking." The author contents that: "A quality search process begins with quality metadata. Basically, it's that old principle: "Garbage in—garbage out." No matter how good your search engine is, if you don't structure and organize your content well, the results the reader gets will be poor, particularly if you have a lot of content on your website. Metadata is about giving your content structure." (2001-01-21)Web Sites Begin to Self Organize
New York Times: This article describes the self organizing features of sites like slashdot.org and the thevines.com. According to the article: "Most efforts at self-organization so far have been fairly simple, but effective. Several features on Amazon.com, like the list of authors with books similar to the one being viewed, take what could be a random database and develop relationships within it. The search site Google, which ranks a site depending on how many other sites have linked to it, is yet another example of self- organization at work." (2001-01-21)The misery of Web applications
We are seeing an every increasing trend towards the development of Web-based applications as the next generation of software tools that, according to some software developers, will replace our current desktop software. This article describes some of the problems with this vision of web applications, such as slow and unreliable connections to the internet, slow response time when compared to desktop applications and the potential for the loss of data. (2001-01-08)